


This Is How Bridges Burn

by xosi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, but yeah i dont know how long this is going to be but, im a hoe for symbra, in other words, slow-burn ship, symmetra has existential crises and someone please help her, wow i havent written fanfiction in so long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8906746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xosi/pseuds/xosi
Summary: Symmetra's moral dilemmas following learning about hidden sides of Vishkar become more complicated than she first expected. Her entire identity grew from the corporation, and if she were to leave immediately, would that free her from any deeds she committed in the company's name? In her search for intel, she made a mistake that could have cost her everything if a strange figure didn't intervene. Sombra and Satya Vaswani strike up a partnership of sorts, and in the architect's eyes, it is a rather unfair one. The hacker has her entire history at the swipe of a hand, but she knows nothing beyond a title and the face of the hacker. As Symmetra continues to be a part of Vishkar, the pressure increases as the company's darker sides become more evident. She must learn to separate herself from a company that claims to have created everything she is and trust a hand she knows little about.





	1. Chapter 1

Satya Vaswani stood staring down upon the city from the balcony of her hotel as the last of the sun set below the horizon. Traffic flooded the bustling streets dozens of stories below her feet, and she was a small figure gazing down from the heavens. (The hotel prided itself on being one of the most distinct building in its skyline with a reputation for being so tall that its peak brushed the sky itself.)

  
She received this posting the morning before, and before the architect knew it, she was inflight en route to this destination. Oasis was a city unlike any other in the entirety of the world. Her superiors have long spoken of wanting to advance Vishkar’s presence into this sparking metropolis, yet circumstances have hindered the corporation from successfully opening a base of operations there.

  
The details of her mission weren’t very specific, but the urgency she was sent out of Utopea hinted at extreme urgency. Perhaps it was a diplomatic step to solidifying the company’s influence. Perhaps she would serve as merely an example to silently follow a superior in the company as an example of Vishkar’s elegance and refined nature. Satya could have mulled over the possibilities from the approaching evening to deep into the twilight, but no one except her supervisors could tell her.

  
With a sigh she stepped away from the view, retreating to the depths of her suite. The finest of course for one of Vishkar’s finest assets. For the next few hours, she would spend her time performing her typical rituals: working on other projects, retiring to the warm sheets of the bed when her eyes threatened to shut, and sneaking back to the balcony overlooking the sea of lights beneath when work nor rest seemed fulfilling.

  
Every now and then the woman’s amber eyes lost focus on the dozens of diagrams upon the screen, awaiting a message with a familiar vivid purple glow and skull crest to flash across. The arrival of the messages were rather obnoxious in her thoughts. Far too flashy, but they always arrived when Satya was alone, nullifying many problems the excessive delivery could bring.

  
Sombra was an enigma––a mystery with asymmetrical hair and a flair for carrying herself with a level of confidence Satya would deem reckless––but she knew Symmetra like the back of her hand. The hacker knew it all: the grime of her past, the golden achievements of her years at the architect academy, her rise to the ranks of Vishkar’s most decorated employees, and if there was a detail missing, all Sombra needed was a few flicks on her hands. She would find out, but Satya’s knowledge of the other was limited to a face and a name that was surely a codename rather than a legal one.

  
Their meeting was a difficult and troubling one, threatening to reveal Satya and the cracks in her previously unshakable loyalty, and it was the hacker that diverted the attention away from the architect, sparing her from external obstacles. As weeks passed since that mishap, the hacker slipped secret after secret into the inbox of Satya. The Vishkar architect assumed the more she learned about the evil of Vishkar the easier it would be to choose a path away from its darkness, but the more she knew only conflicted her further. Who was Symmetra? Was she just a tool crafted from a naive child’s hope to be a method of exploiting the world Satya wanted to stabilize? Questions upon questions plagued her. Satya would feel repulsed with herself and her own deeds that she once prided herself upon, and her internal struggle was kept silent to the ears of the hacker.

  
Sombra was aligned with Talon, an organization Satya would never have dirtied her hands with, but the Indian woman had no allies, no connections, no friends that would have risked helping her in her search. When Sombra crept into her life, she shook her hand, knowing that no one else might come along and offer the same deal. A friendship, Sombra suggested at first, but it was soon simplified to the label of a partnership according to Satya’s wishes.

  
Her blinks began to slow. Her eyelids began to feel heavy and a struggle to keep open, and a feeling began to well up inside her that surprised her: disappointment. It was nearly time for her curfew, and there wasn’t even a sentence from Sombra. As she was about to shut down the interface, a familiar skull symbol flashed across her screen. An exhausted, ghost of a smile pulled at Satya’s lips.

  
She might not be certain how much Sombra could be trusted, but she always appreciated a partner that followed through with her promises.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Symmetra hears something that makes her terrified, and Sombra doesn't want her to be mad at her.

The architect moments from sleep hesitated in her movements. Her index finger millimeters above the surface of the interface as thoughts rose in her mind like ghosts from forgotten graves. Satya Vaswani was a woman of strident morals, black-and-white intentions, and capability, and here she was shaking her hands with those of a person affiliated with a terrorist organization.

The contact made her feel dirty and impure. The Satya of the past stared at the one moments away from opening secrets well above her clearance as an employee. It was another ritual that made things difficult for her, and she would overcome it that night once more. 

There was a quietness muting the environment around the Indian woman. Oasis’ traffic, the prerecorded gurgling of water, the laughter of people walking in the hall outside of the suite all silenced herself, and the world faded away to a screen and Satya. 

She was a woman of logic and confrontation. She was a woman who understood reason, but applied it with heart. 

However, if she remained ignorant when she had a clear choice to learn the truth, it would eat away at her heart like acid.

With the tap of a finger upon the screen, Satya took a deep breath and held it in anticipation. In vivid purple letters upon the white background of the popped up message, the message was far simpler than the architect expected it to be, crushing the suspense previously suffocating her. 

MEET ME TOMORROW AFTER WORK. YOU’RE NOT HERE FOR THE 

REASONS YOU THINK YOU ARE. 

No directions. Not even a place or specific time was mentioned, and the hacker gave her two measly sentences that made Satya’s heartbeat rush in fear. Not here for the reasons she thought? Of course her superiors sent her with little information, but their intentions could not be malevolent towards her. She had been so careful, and with Sombra at her side assuring her security, she couldn’t imagine of anything that might make the corporation suspicious of her behavior. 

Before she knew it, her paranoia was drifting towards Sombra. Could she have had her own intentions in this little game? Could she have given any hint to the company to compromise her standing? When her rationality regained control, it quickly pushed any concerns to the farthest corners of her mind. Their _partnership_ was based off of trust, and although Satya had nothing on her end to assure Sombra’s sincerity except a handshake, she had no choice but to uphold her trust.

She could not handle the corporation and possibly getting on the bad side of a member of a terrorist organization if her questions did somehow offend Sombra, so she would shut off the interface and head to her bed where she would retire for the night.

 

 

From her own setup, Sombra hacked into a few security cameras on the buildings opposite where Satya was staying for the duration of her stay in Oasis. She saw her gaze at the streets below and the stars above. She saw her retreat inside and move about her room from bed to work and back again restlessly.

The hacker would usually keep an eye on more interesting activities than a mere employee in a company with as big as a presence as Vishkar upon the world, but she chose to keep a screen monitoring the movements of the architect Satya Vaswani instead for her own safety. 

Through her interference, she found a messaging thread between two extremely high-ranking figures in Vishkar, and they were discussing a breach of security from months ago from before Sombra herself became involved. The company didn’t take any leaks as small as they may be lightly, and although Satya swore many times she worked with total discretion, she may have faltered somewhere along her search.

Over the past months, Vishkar has been analyzing the behaviors of its employees to monitor for any suspicious person with potentially hidden intentions, and it just came to happen that it was Satya’s loyalty to be tested. The plans Sombra discovered involved multiple assignments with Satya as Symmetra, and the situation suggested that the missions would be of a different sort. More extreme? Perhaps to test the allegiance of the architect. They would dangle hope in front of her and see if she takes the bait. If she cracks and takes the bait, well, Vishkar has a way of dealing with their own stray employees especially those as talented and knowledgeable as Satya. 

In a little over twenty-four hours, Sombra would be in Oasis and meet the other woman after weeks without a face-to-face encounter. How had a conversation about this gone in the past?

_“With such hair, how can anyone not recognize you?” The Indian woman spoke with light distaste in her voice._

_“What? Does my style really bother you that much?” Sombra’s smile continued to uphold her usual confident, all-knowing gleam. Satya’s minor scathing remarks had little effect upon her self-confidence, and her unfaltering smirk caused the other’s frown to deepen._

_“Vishkar technology does not hinder my eyesight, and my visor isn’t an obstruction. I can tell style from tackiness.”_

Two individuals brought together by a mistake. One with eyes made for detail and criticism, and one with knowledge her eyes sought and the power to see the world for what it was. 

“Adios.” With a gesture, the interfaces shut off, and Sombra rose from her seat. There were things to be prepped after all! Her destination was half a day away, and she didn’t want her _partner_ to be too upset for her tardiness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this was loooong overdue, but now that life is a bit less hectic I can actually update more promptly. Overwatch will be involved in this story, but probably not in the way you think. Let's see where this will go, and next chapter they will come face to face.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I'm supposed to exactly write here, but I hope you liked the beginning of this fanfiction! It is going to be a work with multiple chapters, and its focus is going to be on Satya's dilemmas and existential crises. This is a shippy work, but it won't come up until later chapters. Hopefully Sombra is going to make an appearance next chapter, but until then, comment what you think!


End file.
